The Wild Traveler

Like a lot of us, Dan Wild really wanted a STOL back-country airplane, but one that didn’t come with a half-million-dollar price tag. So, he decided to build one, from parts and ideas he came up with on his own. After a couple of years of continuous, conscientious construction, he was finished and flying his very own Wild Traveler. That momentous first flight was in 2024, and when we visited in late 2025, he had already accumulated 400 hours on the plane.

Wild is a truly innovative homebuilder, the kind of guy who started the Experimental Amateur Built movement over 70 years ago. Long before there were ready-to-assemble kits and fully stocked supply houses, homebuilt airplanes were constructed from a dream, a few leftover parts, and perhaps some plans. Builders scrounged materials, borrowed ideas from other home-brew designs, and incorporated items from non-aviation sources where applicable.

Today, EAB aircraft tend to be reliable, predictable–and expensive. By comparison, when Dan Wild’s well-crafted handiwork showed up at local fly-ins, the Sun’ N Fun show, and back-country strips in Idaho and Montana, it served as a reminder of how ingenuity can be substituted for costly quick-build kitting. When we met him near his Wamego, Kansas, shop/hangar for a closer inspection of his back-country traveler, we found the details more than matched the first fly-past impression we’d obtained at an EAA fly-in.

“I’m a city water-plant worker,” Wild said. “I wanted a bush plane, without breaking the bank, so I built one on my own. It took me two years, working every weekend in my hangar on a 1200-foot private airstrip located five minutes from our house. For an investment of $40,000, I’ve got a very satisfactory back-country traveling machine.” 

To start with, Wild saved a lot of construction time by repurposing a pair of 1967 Cessna 150 wings, obtained from a sad non-motion hangar accident that only involved the rear portion of the Cessna. He got the unscathed wings for $3,000, which gave him a ready-made fuel system, lift struts, and electric flaps. The welded-steel and fabric fuselage is his own handiwork; he eyeballed Super Cub framework, purchased a flux-core continuous-feed welding system, and went to work cutting and fitting chrome-moly steel tubing.

The inevitable obstacles were overcome with try-again stick-to-it-ivness. Because he was using a relatively lightweight Continental O-200 engine, he found the resulting Center of Gravity was going to be too far aft. “I had to redo the engine mount twice until I got it right,” Wild said. “Before that, I had to figure out how to attach the lower wing struts without cutting them down. I finally brought them inside the fuselage structure to attach them, which worked out fine.”

For the fabric portion, Wild used the Stewart covering system to wrap the fuselage and tail feathers, which he highly recommends: “I covered it in summer, which helped the glue dry.” The white and Omaha Orange paint was an automotive acrylic finish delivered from Amazon; the emblems are vinyl appliqué. 

Won And Done

The first flight of Dan Wild’s creative bush plane took place in mid-May 2024. In his words, the Wichita FAA District Office couldn’t have been more helpful. He had actually secured the services of a Designated Airworthiness Representative to inspect the airplane and issue an airworthiness certificate, but before his DAR arrived, the FSDO called and said they wanted to send an FAA Inspector to handle the task, one more cost-saving for his penurious project.

The “Wild Traveler,” as he appropriately dubbed his creation, has a finished empty weight of 933 pounds, while the gross weight is set at 1550 pounds. With a 2.5-gallon header tank added to the 22.5 usable-gallon Cessna tanks, he has five hours of endurance, cruising at 100 mph. The stall speed is a mere 35 mph, thanks to the baby Cessna’s famous “para-lift” semi-Fowler flaps. Big 26-inch Alaska bush wheels, with Shockmaster suspension and a Matco tailwheel, easily enable off-road landings on sandbars and sod strips.

The propeller is a ground-adjustable WhirlWind two-blade composite unit. “To keep it light, I don’t have a starter and generator, so I hand-prop it,” Wild said. “I used a C-85-8 accessory plate on the engine, which also saves weight. There is a small motorcycle battery under the panel for a source of electricity, kept charged by a wind-driven generator mounted under the belly.” With his typical ingenuity, Wild adapted a NordicTrack treadmill motor to serve as the generator, turned by a fan he made himself. 

“I have electric pitch trim for the adjustable stabilizer,” he said, “using a bicycle chain moved by a slow-turning barbecue grill rotisserie motor.” The control stick grip has buttons for the pitch trim, push-to-talk switch, frequency change, flaps, and smoke on/off. Sure enough, raising the cowling half revealed a very tidy engine room, with a small smoke oil can and pump routed to the right-hand exhaust pipe so he can signal his presence.

The well-designed instrument panel features an iPad Mini at the center, running the Foreflight app, with ADS-B In from a dash-mounted Garmin GDL50. A Garmin comm radio is at left center, completing the simple VFR avionics setup. Three prominent gauges provide a continuous reading of the contents in all the fuel tanks. Two digital readout displays show each EGT and CHT through a four-cylinder selector. A digital tach and a set of oil pressure and temp gauges round out the engine instrumentation. 

“The seats are boat chairs, very comfortable. I did not install any rear-seat controls for the passenger,” he said. There is a netted wood-floored baggage compartment behind the rear seat, accessed by a fold-down door on the right side of the fuselage; capacity is 50 pounds. Back at the tail, the usual Cub-style adjustable horizontal stabilizer and balanced elevator are employed. The vertical stabilizer carries a row of vortex generators to keep airflow attached at low speeds.

How It Flies

At this point, we were more than ready to go flying in the Wild Traveler, so we mounted via the right tire and step, using the windshield bracing to hoist ourselves aboard. A sturdy set of car racing harnesses that Wild obtained from Summit Racing locked us firmly in place. Ventilation is readily provided by the hinged left window and swing-up entry door, but Wild also retained the Cessna wing-root air vents and pneumatic stall warning horn. 

Parking brake set, Wild deftly hand-cranked the little Continental to life, then entered the cockpit. Taxiing requires a bit of S-turning to clear the path obscured by the tall cowling, but Wild said ground control is more than adequate for any crosswind he’s encountered. Run-up complete, flaps were lowered to 20 degrees, and the 1500 pounds of airplane, fuel, and people launched into a 7-knot wind. The tail comes up instantly, and with a little urging at 40 mph IAS, we were off in about 400 feet. Flaps up, a climb at 75 mph brought us to pattern altitude in short order, where we exited the area to go cruising over the nearby Kansas River’s tempting sandbars. 

Cruise speed at 2400 rpm is a solid 100 mph IAS, so Wild’s reported four-hour cruising range at five gallons per hour would be a comfortable, leisurely ride. After a pleasant scenic tour of the Flint Hills countryside, we returned for some takeoff-and-landing work. Approach is initiated at 70 mph, followed by progressive flap application under 60 mph, slowing to 50 mph as a wheel-landing touchdown is made. Rollout with moderate braking was significantly less than the 400-foot takeoff roll.

At this point, Wild is happy with the low-budget back-country airplane he’s built. It’s a sharp-looking, comfortable traveling machine, more than adequate for his needs. Still, homebuilding is always about making improvements in what you’ve created, and he admits the Wild Traveler is a bit weak in the high country. So, he’s currently collecting parts for an O-320 Lycoming, using 8.5:1 compression ratio pistons that can generate 160 hp, but still be capable of using auto fuel. That may necessitate adding fuel capacity, perhaps by putting Cessna Patroller tanks in the wings, or adding a Super Cub belly pod tank, or maybe installing a pair of extended-wingtip tanks. 

Dan Wild’s creativity and old-fashioned homebuilding have paid off. The Wild Traveler does its job, and it does it in worth-the-money style.